Finally after weeks of planning and doing mild research, my partner and I will begin the process of taking inventory of the public trees in South Orange. We determined specific dates that we would meet and cover all this ground. Each week we plan to cover two blocks resulting in a total of 30 blocks covered by the end of the semester. We have also kept in contact with the officials from the South Orange Environmental Commission to see how more we could be of help. We plan on communicating over a group call again in a few weeks from now. By next week six blocks worth of public trees will be inputted into Tree Plotter by our group.
In addition to this spreadsheet I researched the differences in textures and appearance of the tree bark between the different that are most prevalent in South Orange in preparation to identify the trees next week. This is especially helpful during the winter months where most trees display no leaves making one of the only ways to identify trees to inspect it's bark. These trees include the Ash tree group, the Maple tree group, and the Oak tree group. To start the bark of ash tree when it is young is smooth somewhat grey. Through maturation, the bark lightens to a beige-grey color and stays smooth for the most part. In it's later years the bark develops wide cracks all throughout the surface of the bark and adopts a darker grey color. Lichen tends to grow on bark where there is clean air covering the actual of the bark.
The oak tree bark is smooth and light gray on young trees. The mature bark of the oak tree tends to be dark gray and rough. Twigs of this tree are reddish and have rounded buds. Where the ash tree tends to have fissures all over its bark, the maple tree tends to have less fissures on its bark compared to the ash tree.
When its comes to oak trees it is very difficult to distinguish the oak tree from other trees on bark alone. Oak trees have hard, grey, scaly bark with deep grooves and ridges. Much like the ash tree the ridges exist all along the bark of the tree. The color of the bark is nearly always a shade of gray. The main difference between the bark of the ash tree and the bark of the oak tree is the coloration. The oak tree bark is relatively darker than the bark of the ash tree.
From the images you can see the difference in the tree barks is very subtle with the only difference in some cases is coloration or the size of the ridges on the bark. With this information in mind it will be much easier to identify the trees in South Orange during this time of year where most of the trees have no leaves leaving the bark to be the main indicator of what species that tree is.